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Cry of Fear
Cry of Fear was intially a total convertion mod for Half-Life '''that was later released as a full, standalone game. The mod was released on February 22nd, 2012 and the full standalone game was released on April 25th, 2013. It was developed by ''Team Psykskallar, who also developed '''''Resident Evil: Cold Blood and Afraid of Monsters. About the game Cry of Fear follows the story of Simon, who was the victim of a hit and run wherein he was pinned to a building by a car whilst trying to help an injured man late at night. He then passes out, awaking in his apartment with a camera, while the only luminated room is his room, the other places (even the door in front of his room) are completely pitch black. After awaking from that nightmare, he finds himself in an alley, without any injuries. Asking himself what happened, Simon recieves a SMS from his mother telling him to come home. He then heads home, ignorant of what will happen along his way... Inventory System One of the new characteristics of this mod is the inventory system. Simon can carry 3 items in his pockets and 3 in his bag. This limit in the inventory is made to increase realism and survival-horror feeling, as well as to prevent the player to carry every item he finds, forcing the player to decide which items carry and which not. While accessing the inventory, a number of options are available. While accessed, Simon is still vulnerable to enemies in-game. *Equip/ Use - This option is used for equiping weapons or using key objects needed to progress. *Combine - This option is used for mixing or joining two objects together to make a complete object. *Drop - This option is used to drop items to make space or discard unneeded weapons/ syringes. *Dual wield - This option is to dual wield items together, such as the Cellphone and the Glock in either hand, etc. In order to duel wield, click the duel wield option then two items of choice from * Simon's pockets or bag (Not the Quick Select.) Alternatively, items assigned to the Quick Select can be duel wielded by pressing the appropriate buttons in quick succession. If items cannot be duel wield, a notification will appear. *Notes - This option can be used to read over various letters and notes found throughout the game. *Quick Select - This option is used so that items can be assigned to the 1, 2, and 3 numeric keys. It will allow him to quickly duel wield items, such as his Knife and Cellphone, as well as select an item individually, such as the Glock, which Simon needs both hands to reload. To assign an item, click a slot within the Quick Select, then an object from Simon's Pockets or Bag. Items will be individually selected when a key is pressed, but can also be duel wielded if two keys are pressed in quick succession. The player will be notified if Simon cannot duel wield specific items. Quick Select is important, because accessing the inventory menu in-game leaves Simon vulnerable, and is a great asset when fighting bosses or multiple enemies. In chapter 6, Simon loses his bag and all his items, forcing the player to carry only 3 items at a time, making the item dropping decision even more hard. Health and Stamina Another of the main changes in this mod is the health and stamina system. Here, the health is not shown in numbers as in Half-Life, instead there's a vertical bar. When Simon's health is at a critical level he will start to groan and whimper expressing his pain and agony, also Simon's movement speed will decrease due to him staggering because of his wounds. The only way to replenish your health in Cry of fear is by Morphine syringes. Upon using one Simon will pull down his sleeve and inject the morphine into his arm followed by a sigh of relief. If too many syringes are injected, Simon will experience vision blur. With morphine being the one and only way to heal yourself, it would be smart to try to conserve said syringes until the need to restore health becomes absolutely vital. When used, the player will regain around nine-tenths of their maximum health. Depending on what difficulty level the player is on, syringes will only heal so much. *Easy - Syringes will heal 100% of Simon's health. *Normal - Syringes will heal 80% of Simon's health. *Difficult - Syringes will heal 60% of Simons's health *Nightmare - Syringes will heal 50% of Simon's health Stamina consists of a blue bar next to Simon's health and will lower as Simon sprints or dodges to escape from enemies and jumps to clear gaps or walls. When Simon is not dodging, sprinting or jumping, the stamina bar will quickly fill back up. Your stamina fills up even faster than this when you are crouched. You can also use morphine syringes to rapidly regain stamina, but with the syringe being the only method to regain health and the uncommon rate at which the player finds them, using them with the intent to regain stamina is not advised. Also be sure to take care when sprinting as exhausting Simon will cause him to slow down, which allows enemies to catch up to him very easily. The stamina bar will also fill up alot slower if Simon is exhausted accompanied by the sounds of Simon gasping as he tries to get his breath back. In chapter 6, Simon's health will be permanently decreased after making the decision of trusting Doctor Purnell with the gun he requested. Depending of the choice, the amount of decreased health will be affected. Difficulties 4 difficulty levels are available: *Easy *Normal *Difficult *Nightmare (Unlocked after beating the game once) Also, there's an additional mode called Doctor Mode, in which you control the Doctor that appears on the game. Note: You can save up to 5 times in Nightmare mode. Development The mod started being delevoped in 2008, sometime after Afraid of Monsters was released. Due to Team Psykskallar members being busy with high school and many other things (including the hacking of Rumpel's Steam and MSN account), the mod was delayed so many times that some people started losing hope. During 2008 to 2012, the team members were very carefully not to spoil too much the game, releasing media when it was only necessary. If one checks the screenshots and models from 2008-2009 and compare them with the actual ones, there are notorious differences (overall in the characters models). Chapters (Spoiler Alert) *Chapter 1: Lost in the City In the beginning of Chapter 1, Simon wakes in a dark alley with only his mobile phone and a switchblade in his possession. Unknown as to where he is, Simon explores the immediate area, only to find clues of a sort of conflict to be happening, clued by bloody messages written on the walls, inscribing concerns such as "help me". Continuing throughout the area, Simon is suddenly attacked by an insane, mutated man wielding a hammer. After killing it with his knife, Simon attempts to phone the police, only to have a failed signal in reaching them. Regardless of the issues surrounding him, Simon presses on. He encounters several more men who attempt to attack him, and eventually comes across a deserted apartment complex. He receives an SMS message from an unknown number, telling him to hurry to the fourth floor so he could help the sender. Much of the apartment is blocked off, and Simon finds several disturbing notes from what seems to be some kind of deranged individual who delights in trapping, abusing and killing children who live in the complex. The deeper into the apartment Simon goes, the more creatures he begins to encounter, including bloodied children wielding knives; malformed women with blades in place of their hands and feet; twisted baby-like creatures, and in the basement, eerie, floating women whose presence gives Simon an almost uncontrollable urge to kill himself. While exploring, he finds the sender of the mysterious SMS - a man who is now dead in a bathtub full of his own blood, a bottle of pills next to him. He also finds a disturbing videotape showing footage of a man (potentially the same man who wrote the notes located around the apartment) beheading another man with a pair of shears. Upon reaching the basement, he finds a tall, slim humanoid creature wielding a chainsaw known as The Sawer, which serves as the chapter's boss. Once Simon has caused enough damage to the creature, it decapitates itself, leaving Simon in a sickened state, causing him to pass out in fear and confusion. Eventually, after escaping the apartments, Simon encounters a man wearing a gas mask, who is in fact Doctor Purnell, Simon's evil manifestation of his psychiatrist in his thoughts (though Simon is unaware of this). Threatened by his presence, Simon raises his gun towards the mysterious man. Quickly, Purnell exclaims to Simon that he is not "one of them", referring to the monsters Simon had encountered earlier. When Simon questions him further, the doctor says that he cannot trust him and that he doesn't know if Simon is real or not. He then flees, leaving Simon with the question of who he was. *Chapter 2: Who is that Doctor? Simon travels through the town, progressing through an abandoned construction site. He eventually encounters Doctor Purnell beheading a man, cursing him for not telling him the location of a key he was seeking. Upon seeing Simon, he flees. Simon tries to chase him only to encounter the Mace, who swallows the key before lumbering towards him. After killing it, Simon retrieves a saw and cuts into the Mace's stomach, retrieving the key in order to follow Purnell. He uses the key to unlock a nearby decrepit door, only to come across a corridor which leads to a dead end. Upon turning back, the walls turn red, rusty and bloodied. He progresses through the now warped corridor, sprinting as the floor gives way to a metal grating, with disembodied hands grasping up at Simon. When he exits the corridor, he is in a normal room, with no sign of what caused the nightmare behind him. After the nightmare sequence, there is a flashback to the hit-and-run accident, showing several police cars surrounding the scene. *Chapter 3: The City is not Safe Simon continues further into town. Upon reaching Waspet Park, he receives a distorted phonecall from an apparent stranger, who wants him to go to the rooftops of a nearby building. When he reaches the rooftops, he meets a friend from school (and an apparent love interest) - Sophie. Sophie starts talking to Simon, thanking him for making his school time more "bearable" since she was bullied by her classmates and Simon was the only boy who was kind to her. Simon then replies that he likes her since school, but never had the courage to tell her what he felt until now. Sophie then replies saying that she likes him too, but only as a friend, she also says she wanted to talk to him, to get away form it all. Simon doesn't understand this and Sophie replies "You know full well what I mean" before she steps off the edge of the roof, leaving Simon shocked. As he peers down, a deformed creature, the Carcass, is elevated up by chains. Simon screams at it, accusing it of causing Sophie's death. The player can then either choose to fight and kill the Carcass, or escape from it, ultimately impacting the ending. Simon leaves the building, but as he approaches Sophie's body on the ground, he has a flashback of him confessing his love to her, only for her to tell him to let her go. *Chapter 4: Drowned in Sorrow After Sophie's suicide, Simon decides to continue trying to get home, and heads for the subway station. The trains are offline and the main passage to the next station is closed off, so Simon proceeds through the ventillation shafts. When he reaches the next station, he finds Doctor Purnell, who shoots a man dead and calls him a "stupid psycho" before fleeing. Simon chases Purnell, but finds the doorway he travelled through to the next subway station is offline, and to reactivate it, he must retrieve two fuses to power it. He traverses the town to find them, collecting the one he found earlier, and the second by returning to the apartments housing the child-killer. After a distubing, surreal experience in one of the flats of the pedophile's victims (which is, in fact, Simon's own apartment), he finds the second fuse and returns to the subway. He passes through the active door and reaches the new station. The train there is functional, but in order to open the gate, he has to retrieve the fuses again. When backtracking to get the fuses, Simon finds a secret passage, but upon entering it he finds himself in a twisted nightmare. A bloodied, twisted path leads through a seemingly empty abyss, the only things visible are cages filled with malformed humanoids, wailing as they harm themselves. After passing through a door, seemingly escaping the horrors behind him, he finds himself in a padded cell, with four doors, his only clue being an abstract page entitled 'My Life'. After navigating through the puzzle, he finds himself in a twisted corridor with an open window on the floor. He drops through to find himself in a narrow, bloody maze, being pursued by Hangmen. As he finds the door to the exit, he has a flashback to Doctor Purnell discussing Simon's condition, concluding that he was very lucky to still have upper body motion after the accident, but unlucky due to the paralysis of his lower body. He also noted that Simon appeared to be a "deeply disturbed induvidual," whose issues existed long before the accident. After the flashback, Simon collapses to the floor, temporarily losing the use of his legs, but manages to escape the maze. But upon reopening the door, he sees only a harmless, empty corridor in front of him, leading him to the possible conclusion that he might simply be hallucinating. *Chapter 5: Leaving this for Good After escaping the nightmare, Simon boards the train to return home. Midway through his journey he hears a crash from the compartment behind him. Upon investigating, he finds that monsters have started to assault the train. The journey is cut short by the train skidding off the rails, and the compartment Simon is in hanging dangerously off a cliff. *Chapter 6: It's not Over Yet Simon is trapped in the crashed train, which is hanging off of the edge of a cliff, but manages to escape at the last minute before it falls. However, in the course of this he loses his bag, and all of his items. After the events of the crash, Simon must make his way through a dense forest, armed only with a tree branch and a lantern. He wanders aimlessly, encountering desolate houses filled with Crazyrunners, trees filled with hanging women, and gets chased by the Sawrunner. Eventually he escapes into an underground passage, which leads to an abandoned insane asylum. He sees Doctor Purnell enter the asylum and decides to follow him. Inside, he confronts Purnell. Purnell tells him that he will open the gate he's behind if Simon gets him a new gun. The player is offered the choose whether they want to give the doctor the gun or not. If the player selects no, Simon will refuse the doctor's request, but will still receive the key. The doctor then shoots him in the shoulder. If the player agrees to give him the gun, he thanks Simon for trusting him and gives him the key. However, he will load the gun and shoot Simon anyway. Note that this event will reduce Simon's max health depending on the choice. If he gives the gun to Purnell, Simon's health will be reduced slightly more. Simon pursues the doctor while avoiding droves of Psychos, and eventually finds Purnell in the attic, leading the two to engage in a gunfight. After defeating Purnell, Simon has a flashback where the "real" Purnell urges the paralyzed Simon to write a book about his feelings and anxieties, which is the cause of all the events of Cry of Fear. Blaming the doctor for what he had endured prior to confronting him in the asylum, Simon kills Purnell by violently stomping and crushing his head, despite the doctor's plea for mercy. *Chapter 7: Only safe at Home After leaving the Asylum, Simon discovers dawn is breaking. He continues on foot on reaching his home, rowing across a tranquil lake. When he reaches the other side, he finds a small abandoned shack, and upon entering is ambushed by Crazyrunners. He escapes through a sewer, finally emerging into his own neigherhood at last. However the streets are infested with monsters, and Simon must battle his way to his home. When he arrives, he finds his house is empty, with no signs of his mother. Finally, he finds his book, where there are two possible outcomes depending on the player's choices throughout the game regarding Sophie and Doctor Purnell. If Simon killed the Carcass and trusted Doctor Purnell with the gun, the Sick Simon (who is crippled in reality) is preparing to commit suicide, but Book Simon opens the apartment door. Sick Simon chases after him in his wheelchair, slowly chasing him down and shooting him. It is then revealed in the ending's monologue, that he was expriencing a psychotic break, and shot two police officers who had entered his apartment in a bid to stop his suicide. Simon is admitted to a psychiatric hospital for the rest of his life but continue being treated by Purnell, and is visited occasionally by Sophie, who has since gotten a boyfriend and consequently has less time for Simon. This is only the outcome of ending four. If Carcass is left alive, and/or you did not trust Purnell with the gun, Simon has finished his book, and commits suicide, after killing Sophie and/or the Doctor, depending on his choices earlier in the game. The game does not have the chase sequence between Sick Simon and Book Simon, and instead has the next chapter (Chapter 8: My Life Ends Here), which reflects how the suicide occurs in his own mind. Simon wakes up in his room. But outside, there is a twisted abyss with flying book pages saying "SUICIDE". Simon progresses through, and ends up fighting with his true, wheelchair bound self. Eventually he breaks through to 'Sick Simon' and knocks him out of his wheelchair before beating him repeatedly then throttling him to death. This is a reflection of Simon's inner torment catching up with him and eventually killing him; murdering the weak and sick Simon is in fact his own committing of suicide. Reception Cry of Fear received critical acclaim in the ModDB community page as well as many other sites. Reviews from players (which rarely gave it low scores) have cited Cry of Fear as one of the best horror mod ever created (some have gone even more far calling it "The Mod of the Century"). Praising the visual quality of the game (which is outstanding for a mod created with the GoldSource engine) along with the story and the atmosphere. The sites were Cry of Fear was hosted collapsed due to the excessive downloads after it's release. As of March 2013, Cry of Fear had been downloaded over 500.000 times. Some reviews "Sorry Father Grigori, Half-Life has never been scarier than this mod" ''-'''Kotaku' "This Half-Life mod is terrifying" ''-'''IGN' "If you like horror games but don't like paying for them, this is perfect for you" -'ScrewAttack' "Cry of Fear maniacally breaks its own rhythm in service of its greater goal of smart scares" ''-'''TheBlackPanel' "Cry of Fear is an incredible achievement on the original Half-Life engine" ''-'''eGamer' "Totally sick and ambitious, it will make you shit diamonds for weeks" ''-'''Gamereactor' Standalone Release Some days before Cry of Fear's anniversary, Valve released a Half-Life update for Linux compatibility, making changes in the game's engine. This update breaked almost every mod released for Half-Life, including Cry of Fear. Members from the Cry of Fear community page made a list with all the errors that they found in the whole mod and sent that list to Valve. To this date, they solved only one problem and no more has been done by Valve. Team Psykskallar members decided to, since no more could be done about the mod itself, finish the Standalone release (that will be available through Steam). They improved many aspects of the game and (just like the mod) will be completely free. Due to some confusion in Valve regarding Cry of Fear being free or not, the game was delayed to April 25th, when it was released The Standalone version changes are: *Does not require Half-Life *Dramatically improved enemies AI (They follow you everywhere) *New Blur Effect (used in Nightmare Sequences and when you take damage) *New high quality sound system for weapons sound + new weapons sound *MP5 weapon for modders *Real time donator support *New game menu and game over menu *More slots for custom campaigns *New inventory layout *A few more scares in the levels *Improved normal maps *Improved balance with tape recorders and syringes *More variations on enemies animation *Custom Campaign are updated to latest version *And many other bug fixes Awards ModDB Videos Category:Game